Police restrict voting in Egypt runoff

Egyptian police have restricted voting in areas contested by the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and detained more than 600 Islamists.

26 Nov 2005 20:20 GMT

Riot police close the gate of a polling centre in Alexandria

On Saturday, thousands of riot police were deployed in constituencies where the Brotherhood had candidates, in many cases sealing off polling stations or limiting the number of people who could go in, witnesses said.

A leading judge said some judges had left in

protest against the police action and taken the ballot boxes with them.

"Security forces besieged some of the polling stations, blocking some voters from entering and allowing others in," said judge Ahmed Mekki, who is in charge of an informal election monitoring effort by the judiciary.

Another judge, the deputy chief of the court of cassation who is also member of the election monitoring committee, told Aljazeera the voting was cancelled in some constituencies but declined to say how many.

"When the judges objected to the police preventing of voters from entering polling stations, they were insulted by the police," Judge Hisham Bastawisy said.

Brotherhood supporters protest at an Alexandria voting station

"After that, some judges in these polling stations called for suspension of voting," he said.

Riot police

Voter Taher Abdel Fattah said he had gone to cast his vote

in the port city of Alexandria but could not do so because of

the police cordon around the polling station.

"The government told us we should vote and decide the future

of this country. Now the same government is stopping us from voting.

"This is disgusting. There is no freedom here," he said.

"Tomorrow they will say the election was fair and everyone

is happy. It will all be lies. We are ruled by liars and thugs,"

said Mohamed Ibrahim, 31, who was trying to vote, too.

"Tomorrow they will say the election was fair and everyone

is happy. It will all be lies. We are ruled by liars and thugs"

Mohamed Ibrahim

In the late afternoon in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, a

line of riot police, three men deep, prevented people from voting.

When a Reuters correspondent tried to take a photograph, police manhandled him, briefly detained him and took away the memory card of his camera.

In Quz constituency, two polling centres were closed, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate there told Aljazeera. Security forces were filmed surrounding the centres.

A judge said that 10 voters had cast ballots and that he told the head of the election committee that the low turnout was due to police interference.

Violence

Scattered violence marred the fourth day of voting in Egypt's long electoral process, which ends on 7 December.

A police officer stands guard as women wait at a polling station

More than 20 people were injured when voters and police clashed at a polling station in Alexandria's Dakhaila constituency. Police fired tear gas to disperser voters who had tried to pass through security at the voting centre.

Independent monitors said members of both the ruling National

Democratic Party (NDP) and the Brotherhood took part in Saturday's brawls.